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"BRU. Speak to me what thou art.

GHOST. Thy evil spirit, Brutus."-Act IV., Scene 3. As they prepared to pass over again out of Asia into Europe, there went a rumour that there appeared a wonderful sign unto him.

Brutus was a careful man, and slept very little. After he had slumbered a little after supper, he spent all the rest of the night in despatching of his weightiest causes; and after he had taken order for them, if he had any leisure left him he would read some book till the third watch of the night, at what time the captains, petty captains, and colonels, did use to come unto him.

So, being ready to go into Europe, one night (when all the camp took quiet rest), as he was in his tent with a little light, thinking of weighty matters, he thought he heard one come in to him, and, casting his eye towards the door of his tent, that he saw a wonderful, strange, and monstrous shape of a body coming towards him, and said never a word. So Brutus boldly asked what he was, a god or a man, and what cause brought him thither. The spirit answered him, "I am thy evil spirit, Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the city of Philippes." Brutus, being no otherwise afraid, replied again unto it, Well, then, I shall see thee again." The spirit presently vanished away; and Brutus called his men unto him, who told him that they heard no noise, nor saw anything at all. Thereupon Brutus returned again to think on his matters as he did before: and when the day broke he went unto Cassius, to tell him what vision had appeared unto him in the night.-PLUTARCH.

"They mean to warn us at Philippi here."-Act V., Scene 1. "To warn" meant formerly to summon, as well as to caution. As in "KING JOHN:"

"Who is it that hath warned us to the walls?" And in "KING RICHARD III.:"

"And sent to warn them to his royal presence."

"Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills

Unto the legions on the other side."-Act V., Scene 2. In the meantime, Brutus, that led the right wing, sent little bills to the colonels and captains of private bands, in which he wrote the order of the battle.-PLUTARCH.

"Statilius shewed the torchlight; but, my lord, He came not back."-Act V., Scene 5. Furthermore, Brutus thought that there was no great number of men slain in battle; and to know the truth of it there was one, called Statilius, that promised to go through his enemies (for otherwise it was impossible to go see their camp), and from thence, if all were well, that he should lift up a torchlight in the air, and then return again with speed to him. The torchlight was lift up as he had promised, for Statilius went thither. Now Brutus, seeing Statilius tarry long after that, and that he came not again, he said, "If Statilius be alive, he will come again:" but his evil fortune was such that, as he came back, he lighted in his enemies' hands, and was slain.-PLUTARCH.

"Sit thee down, Clitus: slaying is the word."

Act V., Scene 5.

Now the night being far spent, Brutus, as he sat, bowed towards Clitus, one of his men, and told him somewhat in his ear: the other answered him not, but fell a-weeping. Thereupon he proved Dardanus, and said somewhat also to him.

At length he came to Volumnius himself, and, speaking to him in Greek, prayed him for the studies' sake which brought them acquainted together, that he would help him to put his hand to his sword, to thrust it in him to kill him. Volumnius denied his request, and so did many others; and amongst the rest, one of them said there was no tarrying for them there, but that they must needs fly.

Then Brutus, rising up, "We must fly, indeed (said he), but it must be with our hands, not with our feet." Then, taking every man by the hand, he said these words unto them with a cheerful countenance: "It rejoiceth my heart that not one of my friends hath failed me at my need; and I do not complain of my fortune, but only for my country's sake: for, as for me. I think myself happier than they that have overcome, considering that I leave a perpetual fame of our courage and manhood; the which our enemies, the conquerors, shall never attain unto by force or money: neither can let [hinder] their posterity to say that they, being naughty and unjust men, have slain good men, to usurp tyrannical power not pertaining to them."

Having said so, he prayed every man to shift for themselves; and then he went a little aside with two or three only, among the which Strato was one, with whom he came first acquainted by the study of rhetoric. He came as near to him as he could, and taking his sword by the hilts with both his hands, and falling down upon the point of it, ran himself through. Others say that not he, but Strato (at his request), held the sword in his hand, and turned his head aside, and that Brutus fell down upon it, and so ran himself through, and died presently.-PLUTARCH.

Gildon long ago remarked that Brutus was the true hero of this tragedy, and not Cæsar. Schlegel makes the same observation. The poet has portrayed the character of Brutus with peculiar care, and developed all the amiable traits, the feeling, and patriotic heroism of it with supereminent skill. He has been less happy in personifying Cæsar, to whom he has given several ostentatious speeches, unsuited to his character, if we may judge from the impressions made upon us by his own Commentaries. The character of Cassius is also touched with great nicety and discrimination, and is admirably contrasted to that of Brutus: his superiority "in independent volition, and his discernment in judging of human affairs, are pointed out;" while the purity of mind and conscientious love of justice in Brutus, unfit him to be the head of a party in a state entirely corrupted: these amiable failings gave, in fact, an unfortunate turn to the cause of the conspirators.

The play abounds in well-wrought and affecting scenes. It is scarcely necessary to mention the celebrated dialogue between Brutus and Cassius, in which the design of the conspiracy is opened to Brutus:-the quarrel between them, rendered doubly touching by the close, when Cassius learns the death of Portia; and which one is surprised to think that any critic susceptible of feeling should pronounce "cold and unaffecting;"-the scene between Brutus and Portia, where she endeavours to extort the secret of the conspiracy from him, in which is that heart-thrilling burst of tenderness which Portia's heroic behaviour awakens:

"You are my true and honourable wife:
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart."

The speeches of Marc Autony over the dead body of Cæsar, and the artful eloquence with which he captivates the multitude, are justly classed among the happiest effusions of poetic declamation.-SINGER.

ANTONY

AND

CLEOPATRA

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REMARKS

MBITIOUS, brave, able, and enterprising, Marc Antony, takes rank among the foremost men of action of the second order: that is, of those who, possessing ability to achieve greatness, lack fortitude or the higher genius to use it wisely when obtained. The great criterion of excellence in all pursuits is power in repose; spontaneous, comprehensive, easy-working intellect and in this cardinal quality the revelling Triumvir proves miserably wanting. While "the mighty Julius" lived, Marc Antony felt himself properly placed, as an active instrument in the hands of that great master-spirit; and under him, in Gaul and at Pharsalia, he served with willing vigour and fidelity. To the colder genius of Octavius, his dæmon, though "noble, high, unmatchable," when alone, yields involuntary homage, and "becomes a Fear, as being overpowered." Antony, in short, is one of those who need incessant stimulus to keep their minds in health; and he falls at length, like many other conquerors in war, some better and some worse, a weak and easy victim to himself, in the languid, trying times of peace.

Yet, after all, the victor of Philippi, the deserter of Actium, was no ordinary mortal. His faults and his virtues-his strong points and his weak ones-lie intermixed in glittering profusion; and Shakspere has achieved one of his greatest triumphs in the delineation of this splendid, though inconsistent, victim of ambition, love, and idleness. The pervading folly of the slave of pleasure is interspersed with intervals of self-reproach, of self-respect, and self-assertion.-Among the amiable traits in the character of Antony is his conduct on learning the defection of Enobarbus, his shrewd and long-devoted monitor. "My fortunes have corrupted honest men!" is his mild, pathetic exclamation; and his only rebuke to the repentant deserter, is to send his treasure, with "gentle adieus and greetings," after him, into the enemy's camp. Antony's anxiety, too, for the safety and welfare of his servants, after the ignominious flight from Actium, speaks something for the natural kindliness of his feelings: and altogether it would be difficult not to rejoice that a glimpse of former heroism and success precedes his final fall.

Cleopatra seems the natural counterpart of Antony: they are but sexual variations of the same bright, luxurious, weak, ambitious being. Gorgeous and munificent in prosperity, they retain the love of their attendants to the last: and the fascinating Egyptian, like her ill-starred slave and lover, shows a courage, tenderness, and constancy, in death, that earns some portion of respect as well as sympathy.

The Octavius of this drama (the all-praised, all-powerful Augustus of a later day) does not appear to us so destitute of good feeling and commanding intellect as has been sometimes thought. In the outset, he seems sincerely desirous of continuing friends with his great compeer, on equal terms: he gives to him the hand of a sister, for whom he entertains the most entire affection: and it is not till the natural revulsion of Antony's debauched appetite leads him to indolence and "his Egyptian dish again" (inducing him to banish an affectionate confiding wife on false pretences), that the pride and outraged feeling of the insulted brother awake to vengeance and implacable hostility.-The admirable scene in Pompey's galley strikingly depicts the totally conflicting intellects and dispositions of the two great future contenders for exclusive universal empire. Antony plays upon the tolerated Lepidus with excellent humour, and finally yields himself a willing shouter in the "Egyptian bacchanals." Octavius is polite and affable, but restrained and self-observant: when urged to drink, he answers,

"I could well forbear it.

It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain
And it grows fouler."

His anxiety, also, to separate before the personal dignity of the guests shall be too far compromised, is highly characteristic. The great "coming event" of future mastery "throws its shadow before," throughout this exquisite scene of rampant revelry.

Lepidus-the younger Pompey-Enobarbus-Ventidius-and the numerous other minor characters, would be minor only in so great a scene: all combine to excite that overpowering wonder which Coleridge speaks of as his predominant feeling in the perusal of this magnificent drama.

No edition of "ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA" is known to exist, prior to that of the first folio. The incidents, as in the two preceding plays, are derived from Plutarch's interesting narrative.

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